All good things must come to an end; in less than four months, Microsoft will officially end support for Windows XP. Here are the steps I’ll take to ensure that my remaining XP machines are as secure as they can be.

If your ambition were a world tour to view holiday decorations, you’d have a destination in Christchurch, New Zealand. The statistics are impressive: 300,000 lights, 7,000 man-hours to construct the display, 30,000 cable ties, and two enthusiastic humans hosting the show. After this extravaganza, you can view other videos (below) that most pleased viewers in 2013.

For years, Windows users have moved Users, Program Files, and some system folders to nonstandard locations. But it’s now an obsolete idea; here’s why. Plus: A Windows virus prompts “Get a Mac” advice, and a request for advice on using cut-rate, third-party printer ink.

Remember the paperless office? Never happened; we still have piles of paper that take up too much room, can be difficult to search, and can’t be encrypted. OCR software lets you scan important documents and turn them into searchable PDFs. But the technology is still far from perfect.

Throughout our publishing year, Windows Secrets contributors recommend utilities — some from Microsoft, others from third-party vendors — that help improve our Windows experience. To wrap up the year, here’s a list of utilities mentioned in the Windows Secrets newsletter. Feel free to pass the list along to friends, family, and coworkers who live in Windows.

I must confess: Until recently, I deeply distrusted the security of cloud-storage services such as SkyDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox. But now, thanks to pre-encryption software, I’m now comfortably using several cloud services — with no worries about the security and privacy of my files.

When Lounge member moon1130 tried to apply a theme to his Word 2010 document, nothing happened. He asked for help in the Word Processing forum — and soon enlarged his understanding of local font and paragraph formatting.

Some hard-drive setups waste space — even on brand-new systems. Here’s how to make sure every bit of your drive is available for use. Plus: Getting files off a password-protected PC, running Microsoft Works and Money on Windows 8, and solving email file-attachment woes.

Windows 8’s signature feature, touchscreen navigation, is a poor choice for most traditional PC applications. But new devices nicely blend the familiarity of the classic mouse with the speed of Win8’s new touch-and-swipe commands.

Congratulations! We’ve come to the end of 2013 with 103 security bulletins, numerous nonsecurity updates, several security advisories, and a few zero-day threats. Facing the end of official support, XP users end the year battling a resurgence of the svchost bug.

No matter how you measure it, Office 365 Home Premium has defied the odds and become a surprising success. This quick overview of Microsoft’s for-rent Office suite for home users tells why — and reveals new features available to you any day now.

Is your anti-malware tool actually doing its job? There’s no need to guess; here’s how to find out whether it’s working for you. Plus: How to recover data from a cloned drive, and what to do when your word processor refuses to print anything.

Microsoft is out to conquer your living room with the new Xbox One entertainment system. Now marketed as a multimedia system, Microsoft’s newest console has winning capabilities — but also some worrisome failures.

Lounge member cmptrgy is so impressed by the current crop of seriously damaging malware, including ransomware such as CryptoLocker, he proposed a master plan against them. Other forum members weighed in; drive imaging is much approved.

The character Wednesday Addams, of “Addams Family Values,” manages to wreak havoc on at least two institutions: summer camp and Thanksgiving. In this video, she revises American history, starting with a redo of the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Although Win7’s free XP Mode is excellent for running old software, its virtual hard drive can become overly large. But there are ways to control it. Plus: Getting XP-era software to run on Windows 8, and a warning about “silent failures” in Win8’s File History.

Utilities do many things, but they exist for one simple reason: they let us prevail over the limitations inherent in Windows and common productivity apps. Here are four small apps that can reduce work time and save money spent on paper and ink.

The only Windows update this week is a new version of .NET Framework — Version 4.5.1 for Vista and Windows 7. Plus: Useful apps and tips for new Win8 systems, some USB driver problems and cleanup, and two patches for IT pros.

Changing user account types in Windows 8.0 and 8.1 should be easy — if you understand how they work. Here’s what you need to know. Plus: How to protect your files from CryptoLocker, what to do when Windows 7 tools disagree on whether SP1 is installed or not, and ways around a System File Checker failure.

Your smartphone is so much more than a means of communication. Camera, calendar, link to the Internet’s vast information — it’s most likely also your day-to-day, portable music player. But if you’re using Windows Media Player on your desktop and an Android phone, synching music between the two devices can be a real hassle.

Microsoft made a host of changes to the commands and options on Windows 8.1’s PC settings page, adding new functions and moving or renaming others. The result is a better user experience — but one that’s undeniably confusing at first. Here’s a guide to the most important changes.

As PC users rethink how they manage their passwords, interesting questions emerge. For example, what happens if someone hacks the site that’s storing your passwords? And are browser-based password managers safe?

In 30 years of reviewing technology, I’ve never encountered a product that “knocked my socks off.” To my surprise, Surface Pro 2 does. It nicely combines the light weight of a tablet with the power of a laptop.

November brings zero-day fixes for most Windows machines plus the latest rendition of Internet Explorer for Windows 7. Those who have dipped into the Windows 8.1 waters will also see a flood of nonsecurity updates.

Microsoft makes it difficult — but not impossible — to run Windows 8.1 without a Microsoft account. There are ways around Redmond’s demands, but only if you know the right path. Plus, solving other problems with the Win8.1 upgrade.

New York’s famed Broadway is one of the city’s oldest streets. Well known for its shops, shows, eateries, and hundreds of yellow taxis, it has recently become the site for a highly unofficial, annual skateboarders’ race, the Broadway Bomb.

A recent anti-malware test report raises reader concerns about the reliability of Microsoft Security Essentials. A printer prints only in the Wingdings font, one-time-use credit cards for online security, and what happens to your passwords if you let a password-manager subscription lapse.

Online attackers are using encryption to lock up our files and demand a ransom — and AV software probably won’t protect you. Here are ways to defend yourself from CryptoLocker — pass this information along to friends, family, and business associates.

Lounge member CWBillow has been offered a deal: Office 365 for U.S. $20 a year through his university. But he worries about what will happen to his productivity in the Office suite if he loses his Internet connection.

Safe in its home environment, a cat can be just as inclined to be “top dog” as any dog is. This video is a tribute to mannerly dogs flummoxed — and even intimidated — by feline occupation of a dog’s special place.

Some Windows problems can be truly baffling; but there’s almost always a path — or even several paths — to the solution. Plus: Questions about accessing compressed disks, ongoing Win7 coverage, and that Win + X shortcut.

Most Windows 8 users probably stick with tried-and-true classic Windows desktop applications and avoid the Metro alternatives. That’s generally a wise choice, but if you stick only to the desktop environment, you’ll miss some very useful and entirely free little programs. On the other hand, you’ll miss a lot of junk, too.

Current Windows 8 users will get the update to Version 8.1 for free — but be forewarned, Win8.1 is not without issues. Plus: Ongoing problems with recent Windows kernel updates, .NET patches safe to install, and more on nonsecurity updates.

Huge online attacks, such as the recent Adobe break-in, bring to mind a pressing question: What should we do if our credit-card data or sign-in credentials are stolen? Plus, what steps will help minimize future exposures when large corporate sites are cracked — as they no doubt will be — by malicious hackers and cyber thieves?

A few easy clicks might boost Windows 7’s and Windows 8’s networking performance by as much as 12 percent. Plus: Three ways to speed up Android devices, formatting a 2TB drive with Windows 7, and the free Kingsoft Office suite.

There’s no shortage of Windows-based portable tools for repairing, cleaning, checking the OS. But when Windows is really unhealthy, the solution might be to use portable, Linux-based tools on a bootable flash drive.

Patrons of a West Village, New York City coffee house might have experienced a sharp spike in adrenaline — not brought on by caffeine, but by unexpected telekinetic adventures secretly arranged by MGM and Screen Gems. The stunt was to promote a remake of the movie “Carrie,” due out later this month.

If you’re willing to accept the risk, you can easily disable the sign-in step for any version of Windows — including Windows 8. Plus: Disk compression’s effects on performance, solving copy problems in Win8, and identifying the source of email delays.

The options for storing and archiving data have never been more numerous or diverse — or confusing. Just when you thought that cloud storage was the next big thing, a new generation of external drives and wireless devices are adding Internet file sharing and support for mobile devices.

Microsoft finally releases a much-needed patch for a zero-day threat to Internet Explorer. If it weren’t for problems with .NET Framework and Windows kernel updates, October’s Patch Tuesday would be relatively uneventful.

Windows 8.1, currently available on MS TechNet and MSDN, should roll out on Oct. 17 for both new PCs and Win8 upgrades. Here’s what every knowledgeable Windows user should know about setting up Win8.1, whether they’re coming from Windows 8, Win7, Vista, or XP.

In every version of Windows since Windows NT, the most fundamental component of the OS is the kernel. Here’s a relatively simple explanation of the kernel and why keeping it updated is important — and also a bit chancy.

Google has a new way to stream video from your PC or mobile device to your high-definition TV. But its capabilities are relatively limited, and it leaves much to be desired — especially if you’re using a Windows PC.

Lounge member elycett works for an international organization in Canada and corresponds via email in several languages. The Outlook 2013 mail program he recently began using produces spellchecking in every language it encounters in messages, which is not what elycett wants.

If you’re looking for an extra measure of online security, a centralized, hardware-based firewall can help — up to a point. Plus: Preserving XP via slipstreaming, Windows product keys and OEM setups, and using the free Contig tool for special-purpose defragging.

The venerable PC mouse was fine in its day, but smartphones and tablets have made most personal-computer users at least comfortable with touch-and-swipe. But learning to love touch-and-swipe navigation on the desktop requires experimenting with various input devices.

While most of us are getting ready for Fall, Office users are digging out from under an excess of mostly nonsecurity updates. Not all the Office patches are ready to install; the Office 2010 SP2 release still has issues.

After much public criticism and internal debate, Microsoft made an abrupt about-face and released Windows 8.1 RTM to TechNet and MSDN subscribers — well before the OS’s public debut. With release-to-manufacturer, Windows 8.1 is effectively complete and will roll out to Windows 8 users in mid-October.

When Microsoft issues a security fix outside of its usual Patch Tuesday cycle, it’s always for a good reason. This past Tuesday, Microsoft released Security Advisory 2887505, which reported a newly revealed vulnerability in all supported versions of Internet Explorer.

When Lounge member Rfarmer’s mother-in-law moves into assisted care, she’ll have Wi-Fi and cell-phone reception but no landline. Unfortunately, learning to use wireless devices previously proved too challenging for her.

A reader wonders whether XP can be kept safe to use after April 2014, when Microsoft ends support. Plus: Finding and analyzing Win8’s crash reports, rethinking cache-sizing guidelines for browsers, and more on enhancing routers’ Wi-Fi security.

Personal computers, once a driving force in the expansion of digital music, have been largely replaced by highly mobile cell phones and tablets. That change is all the more evident with the explosion of new USB- and/or Bluetooth-enabled speakers that combine portability with excellent audio.

Malware wears many masks, and often what looks commonplace or relatively benign is actually dangerous to your PC. Here are some tips on protecting yourself from a particular type of malicious software that even antivirus apps can’t stop.

Windows 8’s built-in, automated ‘Remove everything and reinstall’ option provides a fast way to give systems a totally fresh start. Used properly, it can clear up even the worst types of software trouble and malware infections — it can even help improve your privacy and data security.

A Lounge member wants to know who in the cloud to trust with his and his family’s digital files. He’d like a lot of space, he wants an established company offering it, he wants uploads to move smartly — but he’s also minding his budget.

With the completion of the Louis Vuitton challenger series, this year’s America’s Cup sailing races are well underway in San Francisco, Calif. Sadly, we can’t be there because of our newsletter deadlines. Fortunately, there are plenty of YouTube replays.

Running out of room on your SSD? No problem! Standard disk-compression and disk-imaging tools work just as well on today’s flash-memory drives as they do on classic disk-based drives. Plus: Working around Internet download limits, reusing old hard drives in new PCs, and a free database that tells you which software is safe to remove.

When a PC boots, Windows isn’t the only thing that loads. Lots of small apps (and some not so small) load, too. All that activity at startup lengthens boot times, often slows overall system performance, and occasionally causes software conflicts.

I hope you’re feeling invigorated from a relaxing summer, because September rolls in with a mammoth Patch Tuesday. Along with the usual IE and Flash updates, Microsoft has released a slew of Office security patches, some of which have installation issues.

We frequently visited Henri, the angst-ridden cat, before he went into the cat-food business. Despite his commercial success, we missed him. Here’s a new chapter in the life of the indomitable pessimist.

It seems Microsoft is still trying to get right a Windows Media update first released in July. Plus, ongoing issues with a Windows-kernel update reveal operating-system piracy, and some side effects from a Windows 8 rollup update.

Despite copious warnings about the official end of MS support for Windows XP, millions of small businesses are not prepared to migrate to Windows 7 or 8. A new organization is matching up small businesses with IT professionals who can help with the transition.

In the Social Media forum, administrator ruirib draws Lounge members’ attention to the brief filed by Google in a class-action suit against the company in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

The inventors whose offerings are inventoried in this week’s video are not identified, but the outfit that compiled the collection is Listing 10, which has a website, a Facebook page, and lots and lots of lists.

Win8’s Refresh your PC without affecting your files feature lets you rebuild your operating system in minutes. A refresh returns Windows 8 to like-new condition while leaving users’ accounts, data, passwords, and personal files intact. But there are a few limitations to consider.

Some hard drives are filling up fast — the result of a flaw in Windows 8’s backup system that causes multiple, unneeded backups. Plus: Alternatives to Secunia’s OSI/PSI, living with a malfunctioning monitor, and tools to migrate email from Thunderbird to Outlook.

Given Microsoft’s blitzkrieg advertising for Win8 and retailers’ obsession with selling the next new thing, you could easily conclude that new Win7 PCs are no longer for sale. You’d be wrong. You won’t find Win7 systems at the big-box stores, but major PC manufacturers still offer them online. You just have to know where to look.

It might be the dog days of summer, but there’s no relief from the annoying task of updating .NET Framework. To everyone’s surprise, Microsoft rereleased last month’s .NET updates for Windows. If you installed them, you’ll need to do it again.

Browsers provide a fairly good first line of defense against Web tracking, but to protect against beacons, JavaScript trackers, and widgets, you need more. Third-party browser add-ons and applications can provide better defenses against websites that want to follow your online activities.

Forum member marshallman reports to the Security & Scams forum this week his recent experience with an “I’m from Microsoft” telephone scam. He wasn’t looking for a solution; he just wanted the impressions of others with similar experiences.

Hard drive getting full? Windows’ built-in tools might be all you need to gain more elbow room. Plus: Avoiding foistware at CNET’s Download.com and similar software libraries, and a selection of reader-recommended PDF-splitting and -merging tools.

Worried about the U.S. government spying on you? Facebook, Google, Microsoft — and criminals — could be spying on you, too. Internet service providers and others can and do view personal email. Here’s how to securely send private information.

Among the more arresting signs that a comic-book convention or anime festival is under way in a city are throngs of human beings dressed up as comic-book characters, strolling streets or making their conspicuous way toward convention-hall meeting rooms.

When especially noxious malware or unwanted apps take root, special tools or manual techniques can help eradicate them. Plus: A Win8 Update problem, curing a year-long series of backup failures, and more tools for better copying.

If you find Outlook’s Contacts program ponderous and its Calendar overbearing and underpowered, consider switching to Google contacts and calendaring apps. Google’s free tools are lighter and more flexible — and easily accessed via your phone or tablet.

These days, most of us wouldn’t think of traveling without at least some of our digital devices. But there are pitfalls when doing so. Here are a few lessons learned after a week on a Mediterranean cruise ship and five days touring Rome.

A lot of good work happens at nonprofit organizations. Unfortunately, a lot of computer mayhem can be caused by insufficiently savvy users. Lounge member cmptrgy asks in the Maintenance forum for tips on limiting the damage to computers in his charge, including how to prevent irresponsible downloads.

It’s time to finish your art car for Burning Man (this year: Aug. 26–Sept. 2), the annual festival of radical self-reliance in the Black Rock desert. When you arrive, you’ll be in Nevada’s second-biggest city — for a week, and then it vanishes utterly and leaves the desert as it was.

Over time, Windows’ taskbar and notification area can become an ocean of visible and hidden icons for installed applications. Here’s a guide to taking control of those icons — how to weed them out, change their behavior, and even give them a new look.

Microsoft announced the next service pack for Office 2010, rolling out over the next few months. Office 2013 users have lots of nonsecurity updates to install now, and it’s time for all Windows users to update .NET Framework.

For years technology consultants, researchers, and journalists have relied on Microsoft’s inexpensive TechNet subscription service to test and evaluate the company’s offerings. Last week, Microsoft announced it would end TechNet subscriptions, effective Aug. 31. Here’s why that decision is — to put it kindly — lamentable.

The latest Wi-Fi protocol — 802.11ac — is slowly rolling out; I take the TRENDnet AC 1750 Dual Band Wireless Router for a spin. Plus, three other devices to that can speed your work or keep you safe from viruses and laptop heat.

Trying to choose between Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com? These two Web-based email service have some significant differences to consider. In large part, it comes down to context — and you might be surprised by the factors that influence your choice.

Adding the updates from July’s Patch Tuesday is turning out to be a bit rougher than expected. Two updates that initially looked okay are causing problems with a small — at least for now — number of Windows systems.

File History is a radical departure from all previous Windows backup systems. Here’s what you need to know about File History: why it’s so different, its requirements, its advanced settings — and some useful tweaks!

When Windows or apps suddenly start working oddly, two techniques can reveal — and often remedy — the problem. Plus: How to verify your system’s 32- or 64-bittedness, Internet Explorer 10 versus the competition, and how “Ease of Access” sometimes makes things harder.

Windows updates are falling into an all too predictable pattern: critical fixes for Internet Explorer and Adobe Flash, a couple of kernel patches, and numerous .NET Framework updates. This Patch Tuesday also includes various critical patches for Windows media components and Windows Defender.

Last week, Microsoft released the beta bits for the next version of Windows — the first .1 Windows update in decades. Win8 fans will surely update to Version 8.1 when it’s released in the fall, but even old-school Windows users will find some surprisingly good enhancements.

Touch-and-swipe might be the hot new way to work with Windows, but using your voice can be more productive. In an extremely niche category, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the clear leader. Here’s a look at Version 12.5.

It’s a sure bet that most Windows Secrets readers have been drafted by friends and family into the role of unpaid PC troubleshooter. You can reduce — but probably never eliminate — those time-consuming house calls by hardening your friends’ PCs against most forms of user error.

There are many good reasons to build a website yourself, including avoiding the substantial costs of hiring designers and developers. Here are two services that make the process of creating a custom site relatively quick and easy; and if your needs are modest, they’re free.

Although a thousand-year-old Egyptian statue had been standing quietly in a glass case in a Manchester, England museum for 80 years, it has lately commanded the attention of almost everyone who watches the news.

On the rare occasions when Windows represents an internal hard drive with the wrong icon, a free utility can set things right. Plus: Recovering from a backup-restoration failure; creating a basic, no-frills, bootable flash drive; and another reader-recommended search tool.

The themes in Microsoft Word 2013 promise a new level of quick and coordinated colors, styles, and more when applied to documents. But getting a theme’s full set of features requires understanding how Word defines theme and style — and also how they’re applied.

On June 26, Microsoft unveiled Windows 8.1 as a public preview; but before installing Win8.1 Preview, you should know a few important facts. Plus: It’s time for the end-of-the-month, nonsecurity patch cleanup; and if you’re running Java, check that it’s up to date.

We’re now well into an era of mini-apps — created for smartphones, adopted by Windows 8, and now rapidly making their way onto entertainment systems and other digital devices. In a preview of things to come, a Pizza Hut app lets you order your favorite pie right from your Xbox 360 gaming/entertainment system.

A few simple tweaks can protect against most system-updating troubles — and even prevent some Blue Screen of Death crashes. Plus: A question about defragging hybrid hard drives, and a clever do-it-yourself Windows 8 Start button.

How do you extend your home network when Wi-Fi isn’t strong enough and HomePlug proves unreliable? You extend both Ethernet performance and Wi-Fi portability by adding Ethernet cabling and a second router.

Good security dictates multiple passwords. Going well beyond the typical password manager, Dashlane is a password system. Plus: an app that speeds up file copying/moving and another that reduces the size of JPEG files with little-to-no loss in resolution.

Free apps are great, but they often come with an unexpected cost — unwanted additional apps. Depending on how you handle them, unwanted programs can be a minor annoyance — or a daunting problem. The trick is paying attention.

There’s often a way to get OEM recovery disks, even if it’s not well publicized; and there’s always a way to generate non-OEM alternatives. Plus: A comment on built-in smartphone tethering options, software that won’t uninstall cleanly, and removing phantom drives.

With the right tools and some little-known techniques, your Windows backups should never become obsolete. It’s relatively easy to let Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 freely access and use each other’s backup files.

Spam is such a looming presence in the world’s email you’d be hard-pressed to find a mail application that doesn’t include some sort of spam management. Here are the tools and techniques available to Microsoft Outlook users for dealing with the onslaught.

Some additional tips, tricks, and free tools can help get balky, ‘unformattable’ flash drives working again. Plus: A simple workaround for unusually slow Win8 updates, dozens of tools to simplify cloning CDs and DVDs, and a free tool for lightning-fast file-name searching.

Created originally for facilitating on-the-road presentations, the often-overlooked Windows Mobility Center brings together shortcuts for frequently used system settings. Since its first release in Vista, the Mobility Center has been refined by Microsoft and customized by the various laptop vendors — and some third-party developers.

A sophisticated anti-malware tool, Microsoft’s Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) is especially adept at protecting Internet Explorer from zero-day threats. Currently in beta, the final version of EMET 4.0 is due out any day now. Here’s what’s new.

Taking a multi-week trip out of the country takes careful planning. Making sure you can use the technology you take with you, even more. Gone are the days when we vacationed without our phones and portable PCs. Now they’re as essential as shorts and sandals.

Luckily for Seattle silent-film and music enthusiasts, the local Paramount Theater has held on to its mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ, first installed in 1927. Through those many years, the theater has kept the organ operating and in tune — no minor feat, given its size and complexity.

After finding — and curing — Alureon and Blacole malware infections, a reader wonders where to find authoritative information. Plus: Options for simple disc imaging with a boot disk, a do-it-yourself recovery disc, a Spinrite update, and a different way to add a Start button and menu to Win8.

As they migrate to Windows 8/Windows RT, computer companies are taking different approaches to their ultralight notebooks and tablets. Lenovo has been particularly creative, with clever hardware designs and helpful software.

Why is it that the place you most need a strong, consistent Wi-Fi connection in your home is always at the edge of your router’s range? Here are a few gadgets that might fix your problem. (Spoiler alert: They didn’t entirely fix mine — but they helped!)

Getting your PC online can be a challenge when there’s no Wi-Fi, cable, or other standard network immediately available. But with cell service and a compatible phone, free or low-cost tethering software can connect Windows to the Web — with no added charges to your phone’s data plan.

When Lounge member vanillaflavour asked the Loungers in the Windows 7 forum for help regarding his random BSODs, he received precise advice on what evidence to collect. It helped. But even as vanillaflavour seems to have a fix in place, uncertainty lingers.

Running different disk-defragging apps on the same drive can give very different results. Here’s why — and what it means for you. Plus: Identifying and controlling Windows’ services; how much malware protection is enough; and possibly the best-yet sync/backup tool.

Windows 8 is a game-changer in ways beyond its much-loved/-loathed tile-based interface. As they already do with their smartphones, Win8 users will acquire many of their next applications from the Windows Store.

Among the patches for Microsoft’s browser is a fix for a newsworthy zero-day threat — and there are still more patches needed. Plus: A special patch for Windows 8, more .NET fixes, and a clutch of smaller security updates for various MS productivity apps.

If you’ve ever tried to share documents or struggled with merging edits from multiple collaborators, Google’s productivity apps make the process easy. Here’s how to share and collaborate with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides — three apps that are both capable and free.

How to rehabilitate thumb drives or other flash memory devices that are stuck in a read-only state. Plus: Tools for checking uninstall effectiveness, and a review of the beta release of EMET 4.0 — a powerful anti-hacking utility from Microsoft.

When a hard drive crashes and there’s no backup of critical data, what are your options? There’s really only one — and it could be costly. You send the broken drive to a company that specializes in data recovery; here’s what happens when it gets there.

Microsoft, like many companies, lives by the upgrade sales model — get previous customers to buy the “new thing,” whether they need it or not. Obviously, that’s been a successful strategy; but with Office 2013, Microsoft seems to have its eye on newer users.

You might have heard in recent weeks about Bitcoin millionaires — people who raked in vast sums of real money riding this relatively new form of currency. Bitcoins offer both a fascinating, new approach to money and many potential pitfalls. Here’s what you should know about this online phenomenon.

If you’re ambitious to write applications for Windows 8, Getting Started with Windows 8 Apps by Ben Dewey is good preparation for the challenging changes in the development approach that Windows Runtime (WinRT) represents.

A reader’s drive-imaging tool fails to restore his solid-state drive’s image backups, leading to wider questions about SSD imaging and restoration. Plus: Getting rid of cinemanowsvc.exe, making a browser toolbar persistent, and a free tool to bypass some of Win8’s worst annoyances.

Want to fill in some gaps in your MP3 collection? Or get it better organized so you can see what you have? Here are two free programs for filling out and bringing some order to your digital-music library.

It’s often the small applications that make the most significant impact on our computing. A quartet of utilities — one free, the others moderately priced — can make your Windows PC easier and safer to use.

In Part 1 of this series on Google apps, I covered the relatively simple process of moving all your mail to Gmail. Part 2 covers why and how you move Microsoft Office documents to the cloud and to Google apps.

Bill Dance’s website calls him a Southern gentleman angler as well as America’s most-loved TV fisherman. Even if you never see his show, you’ll at least appreciate these outtakes for his sense of humor.

Alternative software (and perhaps some hardware juggling) can often resolve problems that interfere with making a USB device bootable. Plus: Interpreting the results of a deep malware scan, a free tool for alphabetical-order file copying, and another noncompressing backup tool.

Although SkyDrive is a big part of Windows 8 and Office 2013, Microsoft’s online data-storage service falls somewhat short of its potential. Fortunately, you can work around some of SkyDrive’s shortcomings. Here are some tips for living with SkyDrive.

After installing two recent Windows kernel updates, some PC users have been forced to reinstall their OS. Plus: More problems for IE 10 for Windows 7, an update on Win7 SP2, and some updates that are rather special.

Are you getting tired of struggling with Microsoft’s increasingly complex, sometimes arcane, and always expensive versions of Office? This article, the first in a series, will show you how easy it is to move from bloated and pricey desktop programs to fast, free — though somewhat less capable — Google apps.

When Lounge member bhdavis brought performance data from his XP desktop and Win8 laptop to the Lounge, he asked for opinions about the usefulness of additional memory for his Windows XP Home machine. Should he buy more?

The days of IT admins proclaiming designated platforms and devices for the entire organization are quickly dwindling. Instead, businesses are embracing the BYOD trend — allowing employees to make some of their own decisions about which technologies they use.

Over the years of using Windows 7 — and now Windows 8 — I’ve acquired numerous useful tricks for navigating Windows, printing and filing documents, and other sundry computing tasks. Here’s a quick list of my favorites — some, relatively obvious; others, not so much.

Windows 8’s backup mechanism is unlike any included with previous Windows versions — and that can lead to some initial confusion. Plus: Breaking out of a webpage redirect loop, avoiding a Hotmail phishing scam, and recovering a scrambled BitLocker drive.

There are two techniques for running Windows 7 and Windows 8 on the same system: dual-boot and virtual machine. We reviewed virtual machines in a previous article; here’s how to set up a dual-boot machine.

Windows XP was released in August 2001. Over a decade later, it’s still going strong on millions of PCs. But as they say, all good things must come to an end; we’re in the final year of official Microsoft support for the OS.

These free utilities can prevent or cure trouble caused by viruses, worms, spyware, keyloggers, and other kinds of unwanted software. Whether you’re keeping your PC free from malware or cleaning up a PC that’s already infected, one or more of these tools should get the job done!

Running two firewalls — in Windows and in a router — might seem redundant, but there are good reasons to do so. Plus: Security concerns about Windows Error Reporting, advice on differential copying/synching software, and getting a balky browser add-in to work.

For numerous reasons, you might want to have Windows 8 and Windows 7 on the same PC. There are two common techniques for installing multiple operating systems on one machine. Here’s how to choose between the two.

With so many stories about bogus Microsoft Support calls, it’s a sure bet many Windows users wonder what an official Microsoft Support experience is like. Here’s what you will — and won’t — experience if you contact Microsoft for Windows, security, and application support.

On July 1, Google will kill off (or retire, as the company puts it) Google Reader — officially because of declining usage, but also perhaps for privacy issues, according to various reports. Whatever the reason, there are plenty of RSS-reader alternatives that make it easier to read the content you care about.

Two partition managers — one free and easy to use, the other a commercial product with additional professional-level features — offer more options than Windows’ Disk Management. Plus: Windows 8’s almost-buried (but excellent!) backup and imaging tools; a way to make XP easily restorable, even after support ends; and CVE bugs.

Windows 8 gets its first major round of application-security updates — including an update that seems to pit Microsoft against Google. Plus: More problems with Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 keep this update on the wait list.

A tip-filled conversation with Andrew Brandt, director of threat research at Solera Networks, reveals some of the ways hackers sneak malware into PCs. Malware most often embeds itself with our unwitting help, but even when we have our defenses fully up, malware can still climb aboard. Nevertheless, there are practical and effective ways to defeat it — or clean it out after the fact.

The classic Master Boot Record (MBR) format maxes out at 2.2TB; you can’t use MBR formatting on partitions larger than that. But a relatively new formatting standard — GPT — can handle drives of any size you’ll likely encounter in the foreseeable future.

You can find plenty of free photo-editing programs. But when you really want to make significant, subtle, or skillful changes in a picture, is free good enough? I tested four highly regarded free photo-editing programs and compared each program’s results with those of Photoshop Elements, consumer software for which you must pay. Here’s what I learned.

Windows 8 generated a lot of derision and angst — but it also brought some updated desktop capabilities that are begging for a place in Windows 7. If Microsoft won’t update Windows 7, you can do much of it yourself — for free. Here’s how.

As Microsoft’s Office has grown in size and complexity, more than a few users have wondered whether there’s a viable alternative — especially when it comes time to pay for an upgrade or new copy. There are very few alternatives. Two — Open Office and LibreOffice — provide the core functionality of classic versions of Microsoft Office and are completely free!

Laurel and Hardy never danced to Santana’s version of “Oye Como Va” in their movies — nor in their lifetimes, given that Santana produced its rendition of the song five years after Stan Laurel died. But thanks to skillful editing, we can imagine how the two comedians would have danced to “Oye Como Va” on the set of “Way Out West.”

With Microsoft’s XP support in its final months, a reader asks for advice before moving his XP setup to Win7. Plus: What to do when an .iso file just won’t burn to disc; problems due to differences among Windows versions and editions; and still more reader-suggested .pdf tools.

The digital photography revolution has an unintended consequence: our PCs are filling up with hundreds of bad photos and many hours of boring home videos. It’s easy to toss out pointless still shots, but cleaning up videos takes a bit more work; some free video editors can make the task relatively easy — and cheap.

Adobe’s Flash is a favorite target for malware, but Microsoft is now setting IE 10 to run browser-based Flash by default. Plus: Updates for Internet Explorer, Silverlight, Visio, and OneNote — and a slew of fixes for Office 2013.

If you’ve looked into Office 2013’s “improvements,” they might have struck you — as they did me — as largely gratuitous, cumbersome, and designed more to add to Microsoft’s coffers than to improve Office productivity. Fortunately, there are ways rid yourself of Office 2013’s worst changes — if you know the tricks.

In real and fictional histories of shipwrecks, the name “Richard Parker” figures recurrently. The writer Yann Martel paid homage to the history when he gave that name to his Life of Pi character, the Bengal tiger.

Here’s the right way to handle hard drives (and their data) when using an external drive-connector kit. Plus: An industrial-strength data-recovery tool; malware warnings triggered by Reaver/Backtrack5; and a reader-recommended password keeper.

Some early adopters of Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7 are running into problems with the new browser — including BSoDs. Still, most Win7 systems will eventually have IE 10 on board; users need to make sure their systems are ready for it.

Whether you’re upgrading to Windows 8 or acquired it with a new PC, Microsoft’s new OS presents lots of new challenges for Windows users. And it’s not just the new, touch-centric interface: there is a host of changes that even seasoned Windows users need to learn and adapt to.

“Hello. This is Microsoft Tech Support. Your PC has notified us that it has an infection.” The call is a scam — an extremely prevalent one. Here’s how it works and what you need to know to stay out of the trap.

When an enthusiastic early adopter pauses to ponder whether he really ought to add Office 2013 to his collection of new toys, he brings his question to the Lounge. Wherein a discussion of licensing terms, business- and home-use subscription models, and the good sense of keeping an older Office ensues.

Given the many threats to personal computers, no single security tool or technique can protect you against all forms of attack. The best defense against malicious hacking and snooping uses multiple layers of security that backstop each other, ensuring that no single failure leads to an infection.

Microsoft’s decision to eliminate the traditional Windows Start menu in Windows 8 was either an act of brilliance or fatally flawed. So say some longtime Win8 users. If your attitude is somewhere in the middle, there are numerous free and paid apps that will put a Start menu back onto the Win8 Desktop.

If you feel caught in an endless loop of Java and Adobe Flash updates, you might be correct. The fixes just keep coming. In the meantime, Windows 7 users should see Internet Explorer 10 soon, and it’s time to take on those .NET updates.

In this second part of my House Call visit with Windows Secrets reader Pam Newberry, we clean up a cranky Vista notebook and upgrade it to Windows 8. The cleanup process included updating software, checking drivers, and removing unnecessary files from the hard drive before installing Windows 8.

“I think my HDD is going bad,” says Lounge member Look — which isn’t nearly as grim a statement as “I think my HDD is dead!” It pays to watch, not wait, for failure of your hard drives because you remain vigilant about backing up your data.

The world was thunderstruck last week by images of the meteor that had streaked across the Russian sky, blasting windows, injuring or startling bystanders with flying glass, bricks, tea, and pots of flowers — and generally shattering Russians’ usually steely nerves.

Third-party, automated driver-update sites sometimes cause more trouble than they cure — but there are safer alternatives. Plus: What to do when XP’s Windows Update fails; successfully reusing Office product keys after an upgrade; and small, nimble PDF readers.

In this digital age, we have photographs, videos, family records — perhaps even a few words of wisdom — stored on relatively fragile hard drives. All digital media eventually either fails or becomes obsolete, so how do you preserve important files for your grandchildren or great-grandchildren?

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 10 was first released as the default browser in Windows 8. But this latest version of IE will also run on Windows 7 and could soon show up on your Win7 desktop — whether you expected it or not.

The 2013 House Call series starts with a trip to Florida and a day spent helping Windows Secrets reader Pam Newberry with her PC problems. Coming from the Northeast, I found Sarasota refreshingly warm and green; but fixing Pam’s PCs was a challenge — multiple systems running various versions of Windows, each with different issues.

The small network of old, underpowered computers at work in a restaurant causes various problems for the owner — and for cmptrgy, the computer-literate friend who tries to rescue them. When cmptrgy describes these troubles in the Lounge, he’s offered both practical advice and philosophical remarks on the nature of maintenance.

The equestrian sport of dressage is an endeavor few of us would associate with the musical artistry of hip-hop. But as Blue Hors Matiné shows with exceptional flair — as well as the discipline required of dressage horses — a fine artist (horse or human) can do wonders with any form or music.

Windows’ built-in Task Scheduler can automate almost any task, but it’s overkill for some jobs. There are simpler alternatives. Plus: How to wash — yes, actually wash — your keyboards and mice clean, how to avoid a prevalent scam, and news from a reader about do-it-yourself tools to make software portable.

Microsoft released Office 2013 on Jan. 29; soon after, my inbox was choked with questions about the differences between Office 2013 and Office 365. The two Offices share the major components — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and (optionally) Outlook — but just about everything else is different.

Microsoft must not feel the love leading up to Valentine’s Day; February is often replete with Windows updates. This Patch Tuesday had just a few critical updates you need to take care of immediately; the rest can wait until you have some spare time.

Conventional wisdom has been that files protected with good encryption can’t be cracked. But a new, $300, wizard-driven app can unlock BitLocker-, PGP-, and TrueCrypt-encrypted files, folders, and drives — no matter how strong a password you’re using.

It’s discouraging when an application update is compromised before we’ve even had the chance to apply it. Oracle has released Java 7 Version 13, hot on the heels of Version 11, to fix a zero-day exploit — and numerous other security flaws.

Life in our digital world is much like life in the organic world: you can count on sudden failures, persistent difficulties, and disconcerting discoveries. Windows Secrets readers are never shy about telling us what they think we missed in a story — or what problems they encountered when using our advice.

Noisy computers are annoying, but most hums and vibrations can be tracked down and stopped — no special skills or tools required. Plus: Answers to problems with WordPad fonts, replacements for Live Mesh, and using Windows 8 when you have limited mobility.

When Windows starts behaving badly, booting in Safe Mode has long been a key troubleshooting tool. Like its predecessors, Windows 8 includes a safe-mode boot option, but — as with many things in the new OS — it works a little differently.

This was not a year for breakthrough products at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The stars of the show were 100-inch LED TVs (yawn) and oceans of portable Bluetooth speakers; but it’s the small, sometimes odd gadgets that made the trip interesting.

With nearly every news outlet — along with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — calling for its removal from PCs, who wouldn’t worry about running Java on their computer? Fortunately, there are steps every Windows user can take to lessen the chances of being bitten by a Java exploit.

In this week’s Top Story, “Security alert: Remove Java from your browsers,” Woody Leonhard discusses why and how you should remove Java from your browsers. PC users conflate Java with JavaScript, and while both are vulnerable to malware attacks, Java is the more vulnerable of the two. Here’s a quick tutorial on Java.

“Hacker” manages to be a term of opprobrium and approval. The reissue of a classic book about digital-age innovators reminds us of the dual nature and ambiguous effects of computer hacking. Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution tells of the free thinkers who pushed computing in unexpected directions.

Some people, not naturally endowed with feathers or fins, go to a lot of trouble for their flying-over-water fun. Among these are the contestants in the Mavericks Invitational big-wave surfing competition, where the waves can loom 100 feet high.

All Windows versions allow you to use a Hosts file as a way to block ad-serving and malware-infested sites. Although it’s possible to use Hosts files for that purpose, there are good reasons not to. Here’s how they work and why they’re impractical for most PC users.

What do you do when your home network suddenly dies? If you’re like me, you waste time and money replacing devices that don’t need to be replaced. But if you’re smart, you’ll read about my misadventures in network troubleshooting — and learn from my mistakes.

It’s time to revisit the many .NET Framework updates, starting with the often problematic Windows XP/.NET update process. Windows 8 also has a few platform fixes, and there are a few leftovers for Vista and Windows 7.

With over a billion active users recording the minutiae of their activities, purchases, travel plans, and other personal information, Facebook is a potential treasure trove for hackers and marketers trolling for data. Facebook’s privacy settings seem to be a constantly moving target, so it’s important to review them from time to time. Here’s what you need to know.

When Windows goes badly wrong, rebuilding the operating system without reformatting and reinstalling apps and data can save hours of work. A fast, nondestructive Windows reinstall is a manual process in XP, Vista, and Win7, but it’s built in and fully automatic in Windows 8.

Over the holiday break, three people sent me panic messages asking about an antivirus product that was demanding money to fix their computers. If my admittedly small sample is any indication, the venerable and virulent “System Progressive Protection” rogueware is back with new infection methods to delight us all. Oh boy.

One of the common challenges of Wi-Fi is getting good coverage throughout your home or small business. There are numerous devices for extending a Wi-Fi network, but picking the best device can be confusing.

When there’s an out-of-cycle update from Microsoft, it’s almost always one we want to install quickly. This special edition of Patch Watch has two critical fixes that should be added to Windows workstations without delay.

A little time spent now on preventive maintenance can save hours of PC troubleshooting later — and provide better computing all year long. Use the following steps to give your PC an annual checkup — and ensure it starts 2013 as healthy as possible.

Holidays can distract the mind in good ways and bad. When it’s the latter, any ensuing trouble can be prolonged while everyone is away for the holidays. That’s what happened to Lounge member LosFeliz when he disabled Remote Desktop in order to work undisturbed on his servers.

Dogs and cats have their partisans and their detractors, for qualities fulsomely illustrated in the video you’re about to see. In case you’ve never lived with a dog or cat, the use of human characters might prove helpful

As with PCs, making the best use of a portable device requires understanding what the overall system can — and can’t! — do. Performance being an important aspect of using mobile devices, a free, cross-platform benchmarking tool can give some indication of what to expect from smartphones and tablets.

One of the best ways to enhance system performance is to install an internal solid-state drive (SSD), which provides lightning-fast data transfer speeds. But as SSD prices drop, solid-state external drives are looking attractive, too — especially when used with USB 3.0.

We’re starting the new year off with a bang. Microsoft has released a slew of updates, and now’s the time for our semiannual housecleaning of Windows root certificates. A Microsoft update — KB 2798897 — helps clean up a root-cert mess left by a Turkish certificate issuer.

Despite how it might seem at times, flawed security updates are relatively rare. When there is a problem, Microsoft typically releases an update for the update. For example, this past December there was a bug in the patch Microsoft released to fix a font vulnerability. In this special New Year’s edition of Patch Watch, I review three problem updates released in December.

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